In this episode our entrepid heroes discuss feedback, fungibility, financialization of the gaming world, and tokens, especially of the NFT kind.
Here are the transcripts, apologies for any wonkyness, we reviewed them the best we could in the time allowed:
Ecoinstant: welcome once again to Deep Web three secrets I'm Alex trap AKA Eco and I'm here with Spirit surge, Spirit how you doing?
Spiritsurge: I'm doing great how are you?
Ecoinstant:it's been a good week it's been a productive week we're getting some rains here again I'm excited to talk about uh kind of follow-on from our last conversation we got, good, a lot of good input and I've learned a lot in the meantime so uh let me know off the top of your head what was the most interesting thing that you got in feedback from our first episode?
Spiritsurge: the most interesting feedback that I actually received was actually in DMs, was talking about the nfts part of things where they talked about, well right you're talking about you know the development part decentralization and databases - where do nfts fit into that that was that was literally the feedback I got because our first session essentially resulted in people having more questions than answers and more follow-ups than you know the normal uh feedback that you're expecting. I mean, sure there were some comments about you know having games within the same ecosystem or you know having, like language is like the same thing or trustworthiness is the same thing and that's fine I mean in the end there's there is no right answer because uh for different language like for instance if you take Arabic right uh the word for trust confidence hope is all the same right and we know that in the end like in English confidence trustworthiness, hope are not the same words so it's, there is always going to be a language barrier even if people insist there isn't, cause of the way communication happens all around the world but yeah nfts was was big following, in my DMs people asking me more questions about okay you're talking about decentralization where does this fitting or where does that fit that was the most part like interesting part of the feedback I got.
Ecoinstant: Yeah I love that and I think we're gonna get to that today just to touch on cross-cultural communication I know it's true I know it's true I've lived it and it's funny because I also understand the people that say you know there's this thing and it doesn't matter it exists uh and you know you could say it's different but it is what it is and so in a certain sense there is one reality and we have a lot of different languages trying to discuss it but I think when that one reality so maybe you can imagine that there does exist a single idea of trust but when we try to describe it in different ways in different languages there really is at least a psychological difference in how we understand that single concept right?
Spiritsurge: Absolutely I mean it's not only from the perspective of languages it's also perspective from the person like I am again I am a the project owner right uh my perspective of trustworthiness is going to be something different than from what the you know the investor is expecting simply because uh if for instance that's not properly communicated. so my guy right my investor might be expecting that I, I'm like I consider this guy trustworthy if he gives me a full project and it gives me my money's return back. but as a project owner right I might be thinking hey you know I'm trustworthy as long as I'm communicating with people right? it doesn't matter if I am changing the roadmap 10 times right but I'm trustworthy because I am openly communicating with people, right, it doesn't matter if I'm jumping from Project to project it doesn't matter if I am you know falsifying information it doesn't matter if I'm changing the roadmap repeatedly so there's that perspective as well it's also not only the language perspective it's also the perspective of the person who is who's delivering.
Ecoinstant: Yes even in the same language and and you made me think of so many things like uh front end versus back end, and we could talk about uh even data uh we can attach ourselves to any API and get data but is that data real? is it uh is it valuable in the sense or trustworthy in the sense that that it's based on actual user interactions or are these junk uh junk information that has been filled in let's say as sample data. so okay so fantastic discussion there because even within the same language we could have some disagreements on what it means to be trustworthy
Spiritsurge: yeah it is it is, I mean uh for a person who runs a community right and for the person who's taking part in the community or the person who is looking at this community from a third-party perspective or from an outsider's perspective they all have different concepts that's why you have you know that's why you don't have everyone investing into the same project, that's why you know someone will say you know I like this project I want to invest in that because they fit within my idea of trustworthiness where someone else might say you know what sure these guys are delivering and they're like super awesome and all of that but you know they're not fitting within my interest of trustworthiness I don't think I'll make get my money back from them or I think it's going to end up in the loss so they don't invest in that project. there's just there's just so many moving pieces in the human society right when it comes to selecting a project or doing a due diligence right that's why we're here right, to break down this human psyche
Ecoinstant: Yes that is why we're here giving some perspective so I got a feedback uh uh from my mother and it was so nice to hear that my mother was able to listen to us and understand us and she didn't get bored, so I got a really nice feedback from her and that that made me happy uh we're not, we did get a little technical but I think we we worked our way around - the idea of this podcast is not only for developers we want to talk to regular people - people who are not familiar or as familiar with this space as we are I think that's really where we can add value so so far based on the feedback, we're on the right track uh we're talking in language that people can understand and I think part of that is because we are from kind of two different sides of the coin, so we We're translating to each other right we're not two back end guys talking about back end stuff we're kind of uh um let's say uh outside looking in and an inside looking out and so when we talk to each other uh I think we're using good language. there's a point I wanted to touch on uh you mentioned the word invest and I wonder why or what you think about why in web 2, although you could invest in Google or Facebook but in web 2 no one really said that when you were going to play Farmville even if you spent money on the tokens or the packages of gold coins or whatever, no one talked about investing in Farmville uh no one talked about investing uh your personal data in Twitter or investing your time but in web 3 it's all of a sudden we're, almost every conversation has these Financial overtones to it - what do you attribute to that really switch in language about how we talk about web 2 versus web 3?
Spiritsurge: So I want to test, since you talked about this it's not just web3, this is web 2 as well - there is this news that came in last week about a kid 18 years old, he was playing Counter-Strike, he's just three days into his Counter-Strike he pulled out a knife from a chest okay and a Counter Strike isn't, is not a web three game it's a web 2 game and you pulled out a knife right and he sold it for 180 000 dollars. - oh - right three days into the game the 18 year old just you know uh sold it for 180 000 but this is this isn't just like that you take DoTa right another web 2 game right and there they have this uh you know couriers right so there's some baby Rosdan and all of that stuff and those couriers right couriers they don't have any gaming package so just visual impact right, and that baby Rosdans sold for 120 000 dollars or something like that back in back like several years ago. so this hasn't started now this has been going on for a long long time you're talking about Farmville right, the only reason why this has not impacted Farmville is because you cannot trade items right if I have a cow or if I have a pink goat or whatever it is right I can gift it to other people but I can't trade it, there is no facilitation or escrow service that I can use uh that is going to allow me to take this pink goat, a coveted pink goat, from someone else and if you were to take other web 2 games like Counter-Strike like DoTa and they have like pubg right, they have all of this visual stuff cosmetic stuff that they can trade and they can you know earn real like through an Escrow service earn money from it. what web3 does is that it facilitates everything within a single service you don't have to rely on an escrow service right you don't have to rely on three, four other guys to convert this game money into real money uh so basically what web3 does it facilitates this very action that people are playing the game for. sure Counter Strike is fun DOTA is fun but if I can make money while I'm playing the game that's even better because I'm having fun but now you know I'm earning money from - so these financial overtones are, have always existed it's just become more and more easy to do it nowadays than if you were to go back 10 years ago if you were to go back 11 years ago if you were to go back even six years ago, Now if you're taking some an elder gentleman or an elder woman, right someone who's just getting into a game if you were to go back 11 years ago there's no way they could sit down and trade something for actual money, but now because of Web3, because of crypto they can. so it has always existed and it is always going to exist and we're just as developers making it easier for everyone to do
Ecoinstant: Right okay so this reminds me and my personal journey of World of Warcraft, I think there was a way that some people were farming gold they were, maybe even manipulating the auction houses, I never really understood while I was playing uh how they were doing that, right I was just playing I needed to get a certain number of silk to make uh you know a stack of silk to make the next item or whatever, but there it was in the auction house I could pay gold and from my perspective I could get gold from playing the game or I could get gold from blizzard but later I learned that there were and I don't know if they were all Chinese but that was the word on the street was that there were people in China playing the game, farming gold and selling it to people like me, no I actually never did buy any but people like me in the western world that didn't want to farm gold, and further than that that blizzard had taken action, they had banned accounts they had made this prohibited behavior and they were working very hard to stop it from happening but it was not very easy to stop. So would you say that in the web 3 world instead of projects working against what the Natural Market forces are doing it's more like leaning into that tendency?
Spiritsurge: Well yeah of course, the reason first let's look at the base root cause or root based root reason of why even the big companies like Blizzard or you know the Runescape guys right they want to ban, you know, money Trading because once that starts happening, scams abuse those kind of things start happening. and once that starts happening then you become an object of Investigation, because you are now running a game where people are getting scammed abused, they're losing their money and uh if you're getting investigated for that because you're not taking action it can result in dire ramifications of you losing your user retention, right and obviously user acquisition so the only thing they can do is they can obviously push towards it heavily and you know ban accounts ban bots whatever it is and Web3 where the expectation itself is that we are providing the service to you, right but we are going to educate you or we're going to let you know how to do things so uh you don't lose money but oftentimes if you go into groups the one of the most common announcement messages you're going to see is we will never DM you, right uh we will never dm you and you know if there's someone in person it if someone DMs you saying they're asked they're impersonating, so don't give them any money don't you know indulge them in whatever it is so just so that you don't get scammed. and this is just that, right Web3 is all about providing opportunities and services but one of the major parts that is missing is the education part, it's not enough that you are providing a service to your users it is imperative that you educate your users words the proper what we want to say communication protocol right a technical protocol on how are the functionality of your ex trading service or your ex Marketplace
Ecoinstant: yes okay so, so many good points there, okay first uh it's not necessarily that these gaming companies want to push back although they may want to for, a couple of reasons. but they're required by law and they're facing heavy pressure to not be money transmitters or to not be qualifying as things that, other than a gaming company - so if they open up these uh opportunities wider they might fall afoul of uh the SEC for example. okay so that's really interesting, and then scams so scams I remember playing Diablo 2 and some guy said hey give me your rare item and I'm gonna duplicate it and then he ran away he never gave it back to me. and that was the first scam, digital scam I ever fell for he stole my I think it was uh well I forget what it was some rare armor (Enigma Plate), and that scam has always existed and now so a lot of people associate uh web3 or crypto with scams but the scams have always been here, in fact crypto could facilitate scams just like it can facilitate regular business - it facilitates interactions between people and some of those interactions are going to be scammy and so you as a user need to be more careful than ever about the scams, is that, would you agree with that?
Spiritsurge: oh that is perfectly put, yes I mean that's the most important thing uh see with every good technology, with every piece of good technology they're going to be bad people. in the end this service trading service, it is a it, is a tool right just like a gun is, and it all depends on the person who's using the tool, what he's going to do with it? right I as uh someone who is wanting to like play a game oh I got this cool nft I want to trade it for another nft because I've like I've got liquid duplicates now, right uh okay then I'm going to trade for that, that's how I'm going to use this tool. but someone else might look at this and say hey I can make money from this right I can trick people into giving me their stuff for a lower value and then I can sell it at a higher price. uh is that scammy not necessarily, because you're trying to find a profit, but if you are you know taking something from someone and you're taking advantage of the fact that they are ignorant or that they really uh are have no idea about the value of the thing and you are aware of the fact that they have no idea about the value of the thing and you're taking advantage, um it's not necessarily, people might not think it's a scam but I think it's dishonest and shouldn't be done. but then again different people have different standards
Ecoinstant: Yeah then that's it goes right back to our cultural discussion it makes me think of, here locally in our small town in Colombia there's a lot of discussion about intermediaries, when they sell the the plantains or the bananas the the potatoes, the intermediaries pay them less and sell them for more, and a lot of people perceive that as a scam or a rip-off. you didn't grow the potato why are you getting more money, in a certain extent the intermediary does provide a service the farmer doesn't have time to stand around and wait to sell the potato, pound by pound - he wants to sell all of his potatoes at once and get back to the farm and so the intermediate intermediary is providing some value in terms of the bananas they sell them all to a big truck and the big truck drives across the country and sells it in a big city where people are paying a lot more for those bananas. and that discussion about how much money of the bananas should go to the farmer versus the intermediary is a really interesting discussion. and some people do claim that that's a scam, the intermediary is also providing some value so it's not only a scam but this is not even about web, this is probably a 5 000 or or even more year old discussion.
Spiritsurge: Yeah yeah absolutely I mean yes you know the whole perspective of creating nfts, right non-fungible tokens right uh for those who don't know, non-fungible means that it is unique and it can't be replaced right, and what what so like if you were to compare with bananas plantains or potatoes right which can be duplicated uh a non-fungible token is unique cannot be replaced has a unique signature, that's how you basically you know,
Ecoinstant: Okay so the let me jump in here so when we're talking about World of Warcraft gold that's a fungible item that's uh every gold that I earn is the same as every goal that anybody else earns, and you don't know which gold you earned first you only know you got a thousand of them and if you spend 500 you're not really sure which of those thousand you spent but on the other hand we've got the Counter Strike, was it a dagger? uh obviously, yeah knife that must have had some very unique properties it must have been quite rare um and so on a technical side usually that comes with an ID number, uh or something internal that can track which which dagger is which if you have two knifes you know which is which, uh as a player, because either visually or by the title you say well this is the the rare Dagger of the lunar Temple and uh and a different dagger will have a different title, that so those are then non-fungible - do you have any other examples? uh oh we could talk about uh single origin coffee so when people here locally sell coffee they sell it as a commodity, a fungible - like pork bellies every pork belly is the same every coffee is the same, well wait a second recently people have started deciding that every coffee is not the same we want to know which Farm the coffee came from, and in what conditions it was grown in and so people have started to make their coffees less fungible, um and write on the bag this was harvested in this time in this Farm, single-origin so a lot of these concepts are are outside of the technical world as well, the digital realm is is not the birthplace of fungibility and non-fungibility that's probably a a Forex domain right?
Transcript continued in the comments.
This podcast is Sponsored by: SURGENT GAMING, join their discord to try out Astral Wars for free today!
▶️ 3Speak
